


Whimper

by Takigawa Aki (mukur0)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Apocalypse, Gen, Mindfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 07:12:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9112195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mukur0/pseuds/Takigawa%20Aki
Summary: In the truth hides the lie.





	

The Millefiore had a file on Rokudou Mukuro years before the crafty illusionist had infiltrated its highest ranks, and Byakuran had always known that they were bound to meet someday. A million universes and common sense told him so—along with the voices in his head, when they weren't chattering about blood and his mother. Mukuro was the only one who might have been able to end him. Without Mukuro, the way was clear.

There was no photograph in the file; none existed. It was instead several pages of type kept in a manila envelope in Byakuran's office, tucked away in his top drawer so that every time he opened it he would see Mukuro's name in capital letters.

He laid a hand on it and opened the file. The spine was worn thin with use, skimmed a thousand times with searching fingertips. Even he wasn't sure why he had it, especially now. It had been six years since that day, too long to hang on, too short to let go. His fingers tapped impatiently on the folder.

 _I said you'd never be rid of me,_ Mukuro said.

He rubbed his temple. The world didn't have Rokudou Mukuro, but his head did.

They had stood together until only one of them had emerged from that room. The Kokuyou Gang had scattered and hadn't been heard from since. And here he sat after so much time, holding everything that was left of Mukuro in his hands and in his mind. He could have flushed them altogether and erased the mist from existence. The world was moving fast, drawing to a close. _The apocalypse draws nigh,_ they said in the streets. No one would remember a lone renegade in the fray.

It was a shame. They had wanted the same things.

 _Hypocrisy can never win._ He'd said that; he could remember it. _That's how this world is made._ Something had sparked in Mukuro's eyes, a recognition that hadn't been there before. It was the beginning of the end.

And now, after decades of life, he was made of death. For years he had watched screens of slaughter. More recently the sky was scattered and fragmented in a dozen different colours as the galaxy folded in on itself and began to collide with the next universe, sure to send a dozen more unraveling in what would be the most massive multi-dimensional _nothingness_ to exist in the history of time—and then time would stop, too.

A puzzle had to be broken into pieces to be reworked. The universe was a massive jigsaw in the process of its first destruction.

Or was it the first? For all he knew, this had happened a thousand times before. For all he knew, he had been the one to do it every time.

With the file tucked under his arm, he stood on top of the world. There was nothing left. He wasn't going to survive it, either.

The beginning and the end. This was what it meant to be god.

The wind tugged at each piece of paper and, with a sigh, he let it take them. They scattered into a void. There wasn't any need for them anymore. There wasn't any need for anything.

A massive machine towered into the sky, crackling with energy drawn from the galaxy itself and collapsing stars as it drew. Six years to create the destruction of the universe.

There was Mukuro's voice in his head. _In the lie..._

Mukuro's eyes opened for the first time in over half a decade. Byakuran's skin melted into the air and in his place ze stood, arms out towards the last destructive force in the universe. 

_...hides the truth._

The king of a dead universe. There was no going back.

Maybe Byakuran would have been glad. After all, in the end, they really did want the same thing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the way the world ends  
> This is the way the world ends  
> This is the way the world ends  
> Not with a bang, but a whimper


End file.
